A Test for Ethical Sensitivity in Science

The Test for Ethical Sensitivity in Science (TESS) described in this article is a pen-and-paper measure for studying ethical sensitivity development in young adults. It was developed to evaluate the impact of a short ethics discussion course for university science students. TESS requires students to respond to an unstructured story and their responses are scored according to the level of recognition of the ethical issues in the scenario provided. When TESS was used in conjunction with ethics teaching it showed that university science education seems to provide no inherent benefits in ethical sensitivity development but that a short course in ethics can have a significant impact on students' ability to recognise ethical problems.